


Portrait of a Sad Secretary of State Who Has Just Knocked Over a CVS

by MenaceAnon



Series: The Gallery [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Sick Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 16:20:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9665267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MenaceAnon/pseuds/MenaceAnon
Summary: Jefferson, with his stash of cold medicine, accidentally becomes the office mom. Which is fine so long as it's only other people getting sick.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Midnigtartist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Midnigtartist/gifts).



> Dedicated to Midnigtartist and the anon who brought up sick fic. Because apparently what I needed was another idea for a fic.
> 
> (The Secretaries of US Departments don’t all work in the White House like this, fyi, but for now let’s just pretend.)

Washington is tucked behind his desk with a box of tissues and a stony grimace, and Thomas tolerates this for an hour of disagreeing with each other before realizing that the man is not going to help himself. When Hamilton interrupts Thomas in order to repeat his argument for the third time, Jefferson hoists himself to his feet and makes for the door.

Hamilton, distressed at being ignored, says, "Excuse me? Um?"

“You’re excused.” To Washington, Thomas adds, “Be right back."

He raids Madison's stash and scrolls through twitter while the mug of water is in the microwave, then returns, secure in the knowledge that he hasn't missed anything. Hamilton apparently chose option B, which was to skip the angry silence and continue saying things he already said forty five minutes ago. He does glare ferociously and mutter some hypocritical nonsense about manners – then he grinds to a halt as Jefferson thunks the heavy mug of ginger-lemon tea and a bottle of echinacea on the President's desk.

Thomas nudges his chair around with his toe, tugs his sleeves, and sits back down. When he looks up, both men are peering at him silently, which is strange but he'll take it.

He slouches back and props his ankle on his knee, hands lacing over his stomach. "Now that Hamilton is done being wrong–" he says, and it's back to the races.

 

* * *

 

It's doubtful he'd have picked up on it if not for that spot of weirdness in Washington's office: tea and an herbal supplement, out of the blue. Washington had given it such a look that Alex knew he wasn't the only one baffled. But, whatever. You don't need to be a genius to know that Thomas Jefferson is an odd duck.

Still, though. Hamilton's offices are near Jefferson’s, and as October folds the world in its germ-riddled embrace Alex notices a trend.

It's not so odd with Madison, who swings by regularly for lunch and is just as regularly coughing up a lung. Jefferson clearly has some pharmaceutical stash, and is more often than not pressing cold medicine on the Congressman.

It's more unusual for him to stop mid-conversation with a bleary-eyed, sniffling Henry Knox and drag the man into his office. When they reemerge, Jefferson is nattering cheerily and Knox is dropping a pair of Alka-Seltzer tablets into a glass of water.

A few days later, Alex witnesses Jefferson foisting a foil of DayQuill and a packet of tissues onto Edmund Randolph, who is desperately needed at the office but who also probably ought to be in bed.

Flintstones vitamins appear on staffers' desks, Congresspersons acquire whole bottles of Pepto Bismol, Addy the low-level program analyst gets a little black brace for her wrist and, memorably, John Adams has a bag of cough drops chucked at his head.

Alex can’t explain it, but it's entertaining and everyone recovers their health, so he keeps his mouth shut.

And then one morning Alex aches. Everywhere. He is cold and he is hot, and he is weak and tired and he _does not have time for this_.

He buries himself in his office and snarls at anyone who draws too near. Behind the curtain of his hair, in the depths of a fluffy blanket, he drafts mostly-coherent arguments and blows his nose.

He emerges only for a 1 o'clock meeting with his staff – slips down the hall and huddles in his chair, and is generally short-tempered and ferocious. He’s also pretty sure they’re texting about him when he’s not looking, though he hasn’t been able to catch them at it. Still, they’re lucky he likes them.

And then, while Alex is mid-congested-tirade, the door swings boldly open and Thomas Jefferson breezes in like he has any business being in a Treasury meeting. Every head at the table swings toward the door and then back to Alex, and he bares his teeth.

“Really? What. _What_ do you want?”

Jefferson is wearing a jacket and a light scarf, and has the wind-blown look of a man who just came inside from a blustery fall day. He’s also carrying a brown paper bag, and it all points to him having just returned from fetching his lunch.

He rounds the table, sets something down in front of Alex, and then cruises back toward the door.

“See me when you’re through here,” he orders, and _absolutely not_.

“No? No. Get the fuck out and make an appointment like everyone else. You–” Alex’s nose is presently taking uselessness to new heights, but he still manages to catch the hint of something, the savory smell of warmth, and he looks down.

A large, lidded paper bowl is on the table in front of him. Steam is rising from little holes in the lid.

“Did you... bring me soup?”

“Finish up and come talk–”

“Did you bring me soup from _Marcy’s_?” he demands, setting a possessive hand around the little paper cup as he catches sight of the swirling logo on its side. He draws it closer. Soup sounds amazing. Incredible, even. But soup from Marcy’s – soup from _Marcy’s_ is generally the sort of thing that can bring a grown man to tears on a good day, worth the absurdly long lunchtime line of A-type Washington personalities, some of whom wouldn’t otherwise wait for their own grandmothers to cross a street.

Jefferson brought him soup from _Marcy’s_. Hamilton is _furious_.

Jefferson says, “Hamilton. Focus.”

“You hate me,” Alex explains.

Jefferson’s brows spike up and his chin dips down, and _now_ they’re back on familiar ground. “I have significantly more important things to do with my time.”

“Like what, wait in line at Marcy’s?”

“Hamilton–” Jefferson digs a finger against the bridge of his nose, which means he’s getting a headache and will be an easier, if more volatile, target. “Nah, fine, let’s do this here. Hamilton, go home. You have the flu. No one wants to be near you, and if this spreads around the office I will personally ruin your entire life.”

“No, see– this.” Alex slaps one hand down on the table. “This is what I’m talking about. You are not doing this to me. It’s weird, Jefferson. Your whole Florence Nightingale thing is weird.”

“My _what_?”

“This whole thing where you wander around the office tending to the sick. I don’t know why you do it. _No one knows why you do it_.” He gestures broadly. Around the table his staff sits like panicked mannequins, staring big-eyed at their phones or their tablets or the wall. Alex refocusses on Jefferson, and is surprised to see the Secretary of State looking equally frozen, shoulders drawn up around his scarf.

Alex blinks. He’s half-way out of his seat, with the fingers of one hand on the lid of the soup bowl. Damp heat gathers under his palm.

Then all at once his anger snuffs out, and he collapses back in his chair with a mighty shiver. The world swirls a little in front of his eyes and he is suddenly and achingly cold.

“Uh,” he says, and his brain feels like it’s pulling into cotton tufts between his ears. He murmurs, “Thanks for the soup.”

“Go fuck yourself.” Jefferson pivots on his heel and stalks out.

 

* * *

 

Two weeks of the flu, of NyQuil and electrolytes and Washington himself metaphorically drumming Alex out of the White House – two _goddamn_ weeks, and today, not three days after his triumphant return, he’s walking down the hall a dozen feet behind Thomas Jefferson when the man starts coughing.

It doesn’t start out bad, but it devolves rapidly, and goes on so long and so hard that by the end he’s propped against the wall, carefully drawing slow, deep breaths. Hamilton comes level with him and awkwardly stops, fingers curling at the itch of uselessness sitting under his skin.

Jefferson returned from China the day before, sounding a little hoarse but otherwise hale, and Hamilton has been peripherally aware of him zipping from meeting to meeting all day, rounding up loose diplomatic ends. Now that he sees the man up close, though, it is immediately clear that all is not well.

Jefferson pushes away from the wall, opens his eyes and startles.

“Jesus Hamilton,” he rasps. He’s wearing a sweater, looser and less fashionable, has traded his contacts for glasses and pulled his hair back. Altogether, the look is more “tired librarian” than his usual “high-end hipster.” They’re only around the corner from Jefferson’s office, and he sets off once more toward it, demanding, “Did you need something or do you just wanna glare at me silently.”

“I cannot believe you came in to work sick,” Alex says, and Jefferson’s face twists up.

“Bye, Hamilton.”

“You barged into my meeting and _chastised_ me in front of my staff–”

“I brought you a fucking bowl of soup and you started screaming at me about Florence Nightingale or some shit.”

“Brought me soup and yelled at me to go home, like a child, you forgot that part. But now you come in to work like _this. You_ should go home.”

In the quiet tone of a man rationing out the final dregs of both his patience and his voice, Jefferson insists, “I have a cold. You had the _flu_. And I was going to wait to tell you to go home until after the meeting but then you got a bug up your ass.”

“Which is still not your job. It is not your job to manage all the sick people.”

Jefferson’s brows gather up and his lips thin, but as they reach his office door some of the tension leaves his shoulders. Clearly he's expecting to ditch Hamilton here.

“I don’t _do_ that,” he snaps. “Why do you keep saying–” and then the door to his office opens on its own. Addy, the low-level program analyst with a little black brace on her wrist, walks out, tugs the door shut, and runs smack into them both. She squeals and hops back.

“Oh my god! Sorry, sirs!”

Alex and Jefferson stare.

Raspily but with more patience than Hamilton would have been able to muster, Jefferson says, “Addy, why were you in my office?

“I’m sorry! I was just dropping off– I mean I guess actually everyone has been dropping off– it’s just that you always– um. Here.” She opens the door, and points.

Across the wide glass expanse of Jefferson’s desk and backlit by the late-afternoon sun is a tidily arranged but sizable pile: tissues, throat lozenges, boxes of tea and bottles of hand sanitizer, Emergen-C and gummy vitamins, several bottles of Gatorade, a soft blue afghan, and an enormous green thermos.

“The soup is mine,” Addy says, waving to the thermos. “It’s just store-bought, but it’s the good store-bought.”

Jefferson is actually gaping. He folds his arms across his chest and grips his biceps, eyes raking over his desk repeatedly, and after a long, silent moment he swallows.

“Addy–” he says, finally, and then starts to cough, tucking his face into the crook of his arm and setting his palm against the door frame.

Addy gently says, “Feel better, Mr. Secretary!” She nods to Hamilton and then cleverly takes the opportunity to escape.

Hamilton also seizes the opportunity, slipping inside the office while Jefferson is preoccupied. He sidles up to the desk, picking up one of several boxes of herbal tea and examining the back.

“Brew at 212° F. Steep two minutes,” he reads.

“Get. Out.”

“You’re the office mom and you _didn’t even realize it_. This is the best thing to happen all month, just, give me a moment to relish this okay? Also, you can barely speak. Go home.”

“Ham,” Jefferson croaks. His lips move with the full name, but his voice clicks out halfway through. He exhales, digging a finger into the bridge of his nose.

“Listen. Just. What are you going to do? Make yourself some herbal tea, take food from broke interns, and play charades with anyone who needs to talk to you? Two syllables, Jefferson, sounds like ‘go home.’”

Jefferson opens his mouth, visibly struggles, and then snaps it furiously closed when no sound comes out. He exhales with the sort of care that means he’s madder than hell but he’s also trying not to start coughing, and stalks around Hamilton to the desk.

A sleek silver laptop is on top, next to the thermos and a bag of extra-strength cough drops. Jefferson drops into the chair and reaches for the computer, but as he does the afghan draped over the back of the chair drops forward onto his shoulders. He hesitates. Instead of the computer, his hands come to rest on the thermos.

Then, after a beat, Jefferson props his elbows on the table, takes off his glasses, and drops his head in his hands.

Alex discreetly retrieves his cell phone and snaps a photo.

“You realize that by virtue of being the only one with a voice,” he says, “I am going to win every single fight you pick with me.”

Jefferson slants Alex a look. The skin under his eyes is dark and baggy and his gaze is heavy-lidded with exhaustion.

“Go home,” Alex says, one more time. Possibly gently, but no one is counting.

Jefferson shoves heavily to his feet, carefully re-placing the blanket on the back of the chair.

After some hesitation, he snags the thermos and the bag of cough drops. He leaves the computer.

“You want a ride?” Hamilton asks, and Jefferson doesn’t need a voice to flip him the bird.

 

* * *

 

(A photo, titled, “Portrait of a Sad Secretary of State Who Has Just Knocked Over a CVS,” sits in a little frame on the Treasury Secretary’s credenza for the duration of his employment.)


End file.
